


Three of Cups

by indigostohelit



Series: Clockwork Empire [2]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Steampunk, F/M, Kidnapping, M/M, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-18
Updated: 2012-10-18
Packaged: 2017-11-16 13:35:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/540005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/indigostohelit/pseuds/indigostohelit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the farthest reaches of the North, dangerous things lie waiting. This is why Imperial Agent Clint Barton should never go on ground missions.</p><p>Companion piece to "The Man with the Clockwork Heart."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three of Cups

**Author's Note:**

> Due to factors that will become evident, timing was a little difficult for this one. Imagine that this story takes place after the destruction of Steve Rogers' village in "The Man with the Clockwork Heart", but before the alternate-universe events of Iron Man 2.

"You're absurd," says Coulson. He takes a bite of a dumpling.

"I am not absurd," says Clint. "I am the opposite of absurd. I am completely and utterly surd. No one is surder than me."

Coulson taps his fork on his plate, raises an eyebrow. "Look," he says. "Once you get this far north-- and I don't mean north like Odin and that crowd, I mean really, actually North-- you can't indulge in the same kind of antics the Ministry of War's let you get away with in the past."

"The antics _you've_ let me get away with in the past," Clint points out, logically.

He only sees it because he's watching closely, but Coulson's lips twitch a fraction. "In my defense, you did threaten me," he says.

"Did not," says Clint.

Coulson raises an eyebrow. "And I quote: _I have Tony Stark's address, I know how his clockwork carriage works, do you want him to know that I know that,_ end quote."

Clint leans back in his chair, stares at the brilliant blue sky. The air's half-frozen up here; every breath whooshes out in a cloud of steam, and they've been talking about absolutely nothing for three-quarters of an hour now. "How long is this going to take," he says irritably.

Coulson stills. "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about," he says, pointed.

"Yeah, yeah," says Clint. "Look, no offense to the North or anything, but these dumplings taste like foot. How long are we going to be here?"

"Not very much longer if you keep talking," says Coulson. There's no hint of a smile around his lips any more.

"You're no fun," says Clint, shoves back his chair, and stands up. He raises his eyebrows at Coulson, a dare. Coulson says nothing, his lips pursed. " _Fine,_ " says Clint, and stalks off into the streets.

Look, it's not just that he's bored. Okay, it is just that he's bored, but that's big. He's not meant for this kind of work, up close and subtle. He's a sniper. He snipes. That's his thing. He doesn't know why the Ministry of War's put him here, on the ground, in the middle of the action. He's _bored_ , and when he's bored, he stops bothering to be a good liar.

"Hey," he says to a woman selling hot tea. She's pretty enough, and he's in a wild enough kind of mood that he doesn't really care about anything else right now. "D'you speak any Imperial?"

The woman shrugs. "Little," she says, making a careless gesture.

He flashes a smile at her. "What's your name?"

"Anna Ivanova," she says.

He sticks out a hand. "Pleased to meet you, Anna Ivanova. I'm Clint Barton." And it's stupid, using his real name; he knows it's stupid, and he knows it could get him killed, and he's so godsdamn bored that he doesn't _care._

Anna shakes his hand. She _is_ pretty; her hair's a deep red, like a sunset, and it tumbles in curls around her pale, heart-shaped face. "Please to meet you, Clint Barton," she says in a passable imitation of his accent. He laughs, bright.

"That's good!" he says, "that's really good! Look, how much is a drink from your stall?"

She names a price; he raises his eyebrows. "Okay. And how much is a drink from a bar around here?"

She meets his eyes, and her gaze is sharper than he'd expected. She names another price, this one much higher.

He flashes a grin at her again. "Okay," he says. "Let me buy you one."

He speaks enough Northern to understand that the price the bartender asks is only half the price Anna says it costs, but she's pretty enough that he doesn't really care. They toss back a few; the drinks here are clear and strong, they burn down his throat and leave him coughing and alive, and he thinks he likes them.

It only takes Anna a few before she's tipsy, and a few more before she's laughing and slapping at his shoulder. Clint only drinks one or two before he loops an arm around her shoulders, says, "Wanna get out of here?"

So they stagger out into the Northern streets. There's a sunset streaked across the western sky in purple and gold; he points, says, "Y'see that? That's emperor colors. Imperial. Y'know, royal. Our colors."

"My house very close," Anna whispers into his ear, and suddenly Clint's distracted. 

"Well, all right," he says, and grins at her, big and expansive. She's so pretty, and the sunset's so pretty, and the drinks were so good; he can feel them like a fire in his stomach, and she's so pretty, and he definitely shouldn't be this drunk.

He really shouldn't be this drunk.

Oh.

He blinks down at her, slowly. Nothing between his ears seems to be working quite right; it's stilted, rusty, like clockwork left to run down. "You put something in my drink," he accuses her, mildly.

Anna slides out from under his arm, and he staggers. "Gods above and below," she says, sharp and clear, in unaccented Imperial. "Did it really take you this long to figure _that_ out?"

"Shit," says Clint gently, before the world goes black.

.

When he wakes, he's tied to a bed.

"Look," he says, "not that I'm not, y'know, into this. Shouldn't I have some kind of safeword, though?"

"You're cute," says a voice to his left. Clint strains his neck. It's Anna-- well, her name's probably not Anna, now that he thinks of it-- at a dirty window, her arms folded, looking out into the night. "Forgive me for not having any torture devices prepared. I wasn't expecting Clint Barton to drop into my lap." She snorts. "Literally. You honestly thought it would take that little to get me drunk?"

"Your drinks are strong up here," says Clint pathetically. This is why he should never go on ground missions.

"Your southern drinks are embarrassing," says the woman. "Up here, we only give drinks like yours to children."

"That certainly does explain a lot," says Clint.

The woman turns. "To business, then," she says. "I know you're Agent Clint Barton of the Imperial Ministry of War; I know you must be here to meet one of our men, though whether we have someone feeding you false information or there's a traitor in the ranks I can't say." She grins, suddenly, and Clint thinks, _tiger._ "Though I can say that I am certain we will find out. What I don't know is this: Where's Coulson?"

"Who?" says Clint, his face blank.

The woman gives him a long, sardonic look. "I may not have been fully prepared for housing an enemy in my bedroom, but I do know my facts," she says. "Barton, I've met him before. I know you're never far away from his side. Whatever you Empire people may think of us here in the North, we _do_ know what partners look like."

"Then you know he's coming for me," says Clint. He can't help it.

The woman sighs. "Yes," she says, "that was the idea. You _are_ slow."

.

She leaves, after a while more of fruitless talk, and Clint lets himself sag back into the bed. His hands are beginning to tingle gently in a way that means they've fallen asleep. He rolls his neck to one side and the other, wiggles his toes to make sure they still work, and sighs.

Coulson shouldn't come for him. Any agent could see this as a trap a mile away. The woman's right; they've been spending too much time together anyway. Most special agents for the Ministry of War don't have permanent partners. It's too easy to get attached, too easy for enemies to use that against you.

But-- it's been a long time since Clint was a kid in the Middle Colonies. It's been a long time since the circus, alive and tumbling with clockwork animals and laughing people. It's been a long time since he learned how to shoot, straight and true, simple and honest.

And it's been a long time since he met Phil Coulson.

The Ministry of War doesn't like to use the term "handler", either. It's one of those words that rubs them the wrong way, reminds them too much of the slavery their campaign is built to further. But it is true that no one would work with Clint for more than a week until Coulson came along, and it's true that when Clint met Coulson, the other man looked as if he hadn't smiled in months.

Clint trusts Coulson. It's as simple as that. He trusts Coulson to tell him when he's wrong, and defend him when he's right; he trusts Coulson to tell him the truth, and let him make his own decisions, and he trusts Coulson to know what's best for him, even when Clint doesn't.

And he thinks Coulson trusts him, too, and the thought of that is warm and comforting in his chest in a way he can't quite explain.

Coulson will come for him. And if they're both lucky, he'll have backup and a plan. And if not... well. It's probably a better idea to be lucky.

The door opens, letting a gust of cool air into the room, and the woman slips in. "Still awake and alert?" she says. "It's two in the morning."

"I took a nap earlier," says Clint. "Besides, my hands are numb, I can't fall asleep like this." He lifts a hopeful eyebrow. "Loosen the ties?"

"Ha, ha, ha," says the woman dryly.

"Where were you, anyway?" says Clint, curious. "What was so important you had to leave your prisoner all alone?"

"How do you know it wasn't to tell my people you're here?" says the woman, who's suddenly very busy at the stove.

"Uh-huh," says Clint, "sure. You leave me here while you go and tell them you've got a special Imperial agent locked up. Meanwhile, I get kidnapped or rescued or killed. Yeah, that seems like a really smart risk to take."

"Maybe I'm not really smart," says the woman.

Clint snorts. "I'll believe that when I see it," he says, and the woman smirks.

"I like _you_ ," she says.

"Everyone likes me," says Clint. "Duh. What I want to know is, who were you visiting," and that's when the door caves in.

 _Coulson brought backup_ , is Clint's first thought, and he's right. There must be about twenty Imperial agents there, all with muskets, and at their head, Coulson.

"Miss Romanoff," he says, polite and cold.

And the woman does the strangest thing Clint can think of, given the circumstances. She smiles. It's a tiger smile, of course, but there's something almost sweet about it.

"Mr. Coulson," she says. "So nice to see you again."

"Get her," says Coulson, and the Imperial agents move in. Coulson's moving to the bed now, though, and untying Clint's hands and feet, patting down his body to make sure he's all right. "Any torture?" he asks.

"Nope," says Clint, shaking out his hands. "Didn't tell her a thing, either. Who is she?"

"Natasha Romanoff," says Coulson, "one of the North's top agents. She must have known we were in the area, been waiting for an agent to come along so she could get him." He rubs the bridge of his nose. "Hm."

"Hm, what?" says Clint, suspicious.

"She's one of the most intelligent people I know of," says Coulson.

"If this thought is about to end with 'That was too easy,' I swear to the gods," Clint warns, but there's a sinking sensation in his stomach. Coulson's right. It is too easy. Natasha hadn't tried to pry any information out of him when she'd been pretending to be Anna; she hadn't even bothered to torture him. Clint's no superspy, just a sniper, but even he's sure there must be better ways to go about getting information than this.

"Pat her down for bugs," says Coulson to the men. "Recording devices, little mechanisms that can crawl away and search for help, things like that."

"Sir, even Lord Stark hasn't come up with something like that yet," one of the men protests.

"Strange as it may seem, there are people in this world who are smarter than Anthony Stark," snaps Coulson. "Check her thoroughly. Run over the whole place." He looks at Natasha, his eyes cold. "I don't suppose you'd like to tell us what your game is right now."

Now Natasha's smiling like a tiger again, but there's still an edge of sadness to it that Clint can't quite explain. "I wouldn't want to give away the ending," she says.

Coulson frowns. "Let's go," he says.

.

The carriage has two portions to it: the front seats, where Clint and Coulson are sitting, and the wooden-benched back, where they've put Natasha. It's an old repurposed slave wagon, which Clint's trying not to think about.

"Listen," says Coulson, quiet in his ear. His breath's warm on Clint's neck, and Clint can't help but shiver. "Don't ever run away like that again."

Clint turns his head to meet Coulson's eyes. "Phil," he says.

Coulson says, "I don't like being scared," and his eyes are intense.

"I can't make promises," says Clint, because he can't.

Coulson turns back to stare at the curtain separating them from the driver. "I know," he says, and against all odds, Clint thinks he really does.

.

There's a special meeting in Fury's office, when they get back to the Empire. Clint's allowed in, because there's no actual reason to let him skip it, but he doesn't like it. He sits in a corner, polishes his bow, twitches. This isn't his area.

"I hate to say it," says Coulson, clipped, "but she was captured far too easily. I don't think we should expect anyone to come to rescue her. The only reason she's here is because they want her to be."

Fury purses his lips. "I have a bad feeling about all of this."

"Sir, I have a bad feeling about everything Natasha Romanoff is involved in," says Coulson. "But that doesn't change the facts. We captured her and rescued Barton with little or no trouble. Romanoff hadn't even bothered to cover her tracks. She let Barton pass out on the street in broad daylight, for the gods' sake. She wanted to be captured, and she must have known we would take her back to the Empire."

Fury rubs the bridge of his nose. "This goddamn politics," he says. "You know we're not allowed to get mad at the North for kidnapping Barton? And they can't get mad at us for kidnapping Romanoff, since officially, she doesn't exist. And there are no spies in any country ever, and it's all godsdamn sunshine and butterflies. I never thought I'd say this, but I wish Stark were involved in this. At least he admits all of it's bullshit."

"The Annual Exposition and Ball's in a week, sir," says Coulson, "and Stark's apparently going to arrive with a whole flock of dancing girls. I'm sure you'll have had your fill of him by then."

"How did this conversation become about Tony Stark," says Fury, in a pained monotone. "Look, Coulson, I understand your logic, but I don't like this. Put guards around Romanoff anyway. It can't hurt."

"Sir," says Coulson, and salutes. Clint pushes to his feet and salutes with his bow. The door closes behind them.

.

The first Northern agents come for Natasha in another week.

Clint doesn't think he's ever seen Coulson so shocked before. By the time they've driven the would-be rescuers off, one of them bleeding badly, Coulson's eyes have narrowed. "A trick, then," he says. "To cover their tracks properly. Make us think we really have captured her."

"Maybe you really have captured me," says Natasha, lounging in her cell. She looks effortlessly bored.

"Or maybe they've changed their minds," Clint suggests. "They don't want her here after all. They're afraid of the risk of keeping her here."

Coulson's eyebrows shoot up, which is how Clint knows he might be right. "They think we must be torturing her," he says. "I assumed she would only give us false information, but maybe they don't trust her enough."

"They'll come again," says Clint. "Better ones, this time."

"Increase the guard," says Fury, and sighs. "This week is going to hell."

.

They do come again, and they are better, but they nevertheless limp off into the night again with no Natasha. Clint's taken to wandering down to her cell at odd hours; he doesn't want to talk to her, not with so many agents there, but it's almost nice to be around her, settle down by her cell and read a book, fiddle with a new clockwork toy he's gotten. Sometimes he'll look up and see her face, curious and thoughtful, watching him.

"Any chance you'll tell me what you're thinking?" he says one day to her, idly.

She smiles at him, and it's barely a tiger smile at all. "I was thinking how nice it would be to see the sun one last time before you Empire brutes put me to death," she says, melodramatic.

"Nice try," says Clint, but he's grinning. "We're not going to kill you, you know. You haven't even told us anything."

"I know," says Natasha. "Question for a question. What are you thinking?"

"How curious I am about you," Clint admits. "What your endgame might be. You're a freakin' mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma, y'know."

"I do my best," says Natasha.

"I know," says Clint.

.

"She's waiting for something," says Clint, after the third wave of Northerners has come and gone.

"What do you mean?" says Coulson, his gaze sharp.

"I mean she never even seems like she wants to be rescued," says Clint. "They want to get her back-- you don't waste this many men on a fake rescue mission. She isn't even trying to go with them. She just sits there and watches."

Coulson frowns. "What in the gods' name could she be waiting for?"

.

"What are you waiting for?" says Clint, when he's down at Natasha's cell next.

"Lunch," says Natasha, dry.

"You know what I mean," says Clint. "With the rescues. What are you waiting for? Who are you waiting for?"

Natasha goes suddenly, absolutely still. "Get out," she says, with no inflection.

Clint gets out.

.

He goes to shoot things full of arrows. It's what he does when he needs to clear his mind, and besides, he's good at it. The target narrows down to a single point in space and time, and his body becomes nothing but draw-aim-shoot, draw-aim-shoot, for hours at a time. He doesn't know how long it is before he becomes aware of Coulson's shadow behind him, patiently waiting.

He lowers his bow. "Hey," he says.

"Hello," says Coulson.

Clint puts his bow away, follows Coulson out of the target practice courtyard and through the winding corridors, until they reach Coulson's quarters. Coulson gestures to the bed; Clint goes to it, lies down, buries his head under the pillow. He's acting like he's five, but it's that kind of day.

"Look," he says, muffled but intelligible through the pillow, "I like her. A lot, okay? Not, like, romantically or anything. That ship sailed when she drugged my drink. But she's funny, and she's smart, and I like her."

He pulls his head out from under the pillow. "We're not going to kill her, are we?"

"Probably not," says Coulson. "I didn't want to talk to you about her, though."

"All right," says Clint, and shoves himself to a sitting position. "What's up?"

Coulson stretches his arms, cracks his knuckles. Clint waits, patient. Finally, Coulson says, "I was worried about you."

"In the North?" says Clint.

Coulson inclines his head. "If I hadn't been able to convince the other agents to come with me, I would have gone to get you on my own," he says. "That's an emotional compromise no agent should be forced into."

Clint turns his head away, the bottom dropping out of his stomach. "All right," he says.

"Barton," says Coulson, exasperation in his voice, "it's too _late_."

Clint's turning back, not quite daring to hope, when Coulson kisses him quickly and softly, barely a brush of the lips.

He's pulling back when Clint cups his jaw. "Hey," he says, "you don't get to run away, I would've done the same godsdamn thing, we're both screwed," and kisses him hard.

Coulson kisses like he does everything else: methodically, by the book, following the most direct path from point A to point B, assuming point B is getting Clint's brains to melt out his ears. He's kissing back as enthusiastically as he can, pouring everything he has into it, and it seems to be working; Coulson's got his hands in Clint's hair, is pressing him closer, and Clint wants more, wants--

The intruder alarm goes off.

They break apart, look at each other with long-suffering eyes. "Later," Coulson promises, and Clint can't stop himself from grinning as they dash through the corridors, down staircases, and into the holding cells where Natasha is waiting for them.

"Please tell me we can expect some competition this time," says Clint, nocking an arrow to his bow. "With the quality of agent the North's been sending us, I'm kind of embarrassed we haven't conquered you guys alr--"

He's cut off by a yell. One of the guards has gone down, a dark stain spreading on his stomach. Clint spins, searching for the source of the shot, but there's nothing in the cells but shadows.

There's a noise behind him. He glances back; Natasha's on her feet, her hands wrapped around the bars. Her face is bright, hungry.

"Okay," Clint says, "playtime is over. Come out and show us who you are."

There's no response. Nothing but silence. But somewhere in the darkness, something gleams, and Clint fires on instinct straight at that point of light--

The arrow bounces off with a _clang._

Natasha hisses something in the Northern tongue; it's too fast for Clint to hear, but Coulson goes still. "Barton," he says, "get back."

Clint starts, furious, "What the _hell--_ "

"Barton, get back," Coulson bellows, and then there's a flash, a man moving through the narrow space, and another of the Imperial agents is down, clutching at his chest, gasping like something in his lung's broken, and Clint's firing, but he misses. He misses, for the first time since he was ten years old, the man's just too _fast_ and Natasha shouts that phrase she said before, and Clint understands it now: it's _zimoy soldata_ , Winter Soldier.

The Winter Soldier's at the bars of Natasha's cell; he tries to reach through, but they're too narrowly spaced, and he cocks his gleaming metal fist-- Clint can hear the grind of gears-- and punches one as hard as he can, and it bends. Clint shoots at him again, and he dodges the arrow like he might a fly.

Natasha's speaking to him quickly now, and Clint picks up what he can: _you're here, you don't know how I missed you, come with me, stay with me, this is our chance_ , and none of the agents want to get near the Winter Soldier, they've seen what he did to the other two, and when Clint meets Coulson's eyes Coulson shakes his head a fraction.

"But he's going to break her out!" Clint hisses, as quiet as he can; the Winter Soldier's attention seems pretty focused right now, and he doesn't want to have all that power and danger focused on him if he can help it.

"We'll see," says Coulson, and his face is a mask.

The bars snap. Natasha reaches out a hand to the Winter Soldier, leans in to kiss him, and seems to realize as she does that his eyes are blank, cold, empty--

The Winter Soldier's metal hand is wrapping around Natasha's throat when Clint moves.

Screw arrows; he tackles the Winter Soldier head-on. It doesn't do much. The man's built like a freaking mountain, if mountains could kill you. But it does surprise him, throw him off-balance, and that's all Natasha needs. She grabs the hand around her throat and wrenches it off, strikes at the Winter Soldier's eye, and the man staggers backwards for the first time.

Coulson yells a command, Clint doesn't know what, and the Imperial agents are moving for the first time, striking at the Winter Soldier with kicks and punches, and Clint takes the opportunity to open Natasha's cell door so she can join in the melee. But the Winter Soldier's holding his own; in fact, it seems to Clint almost as if he's holding back, refraining from unleashing everything he's got, and Clint doesn't understand this.

Natasha shouts something over the noise. It's in Northern; _ya tebya lyublyu_ , and he doesn't understand it, this was never part of the vocabulary he was taught, but there's such emotion behind the words that it's like an arrow to the chest; she shouts it again, and the Winter Soldier takes a step back, and his face flickers.

"Natasha," Clint says, a warning, "I don't know if we have time for this," but Natasha says it again, soft, and the Winter Soldier stops. His face is still expressionless, but there's something in his eyes that wasn't there before, and it shocks Clint with its familiarity, because he sees it in Coulson's face, every second of every day.

The Winter Soldier drops his arms. Then he moves, faster than Clint had ever thought possible, and disappears.

Natasha crumples to the ground.

.

"They must have realized I didn't want to come back," says Natasha, without emotion. She sips her tea.

"It was a good plan," Fury says. "I can't pretend I like the part where you used us as your mules across the border into the Empire, but-- it was a good plan." His tone is that of grudging respect.

"I hadn't expected--" says Natasha, and breaks off. "I'd seen him just a month ago. Usually they wouldn't-- do this-- for at least four months apart. I thought he'd still be. Himself."

"That's who you were visiting," says Clint, understanding dawning on him. "When you'd kidnapped me. Right before Phil came to get me. They must have wiped his memories just afterward."

"They must have seen me leaving his quarters," says Natasha, "yes."

Clint doesn't rub a hand up and down her back, but he moves closer to her, placing himself at her shoulder. Her mouth twitches, but the set of her shoulders goes down.

"You could have left without him," Fury says. "Let yourself be captured, escape once you were in the Empire, and live free without any trouble. Just let him stay there."

Clint looks up, catches Coulson's eye. Natasha, who's watching them, snorts out a half-laugh. Coulson's lips twitch in a smirk.

Fury leans back in his chair, rubs his forehead. "Look," he says, "we'll do our best to find him and bring him in. Until then, I'm assuming Barton's already told you we've offered you a place in the Ministry of War?"

Natasha shrugs, fluid. Clint's grin is unrepentant. Coulson rolls his eyes, ever so slightly, and Clint feels a sudden, enormous affection for the both of them, blooming in his chest like sunlight.

"I'll accept it," says Natasha. "On one condition."

"You want to work with Barton and Coulson," says Fury wearily.

"I trust them," says Natasha simply, and Clint can't help himself, he has to squeeze her shoulder. Natasha huffs out a quiet laugh. "And I owe Barton a debt," she says. "For being stupid enough not to realize when I was drugging his drink."

Fury looks from her to Clint to Coulson, sighs. "All right," he says. "As long as I get to sic you all on Tony Stark. It's going to be a long godsdamn week."

They're walking down the corridor together, Clint's fingers tangled in Coulson's, Natasha at his side, and the door's shutting behind them, and the sun's pouring in through the windows; Clint can feel something incredible moving towards him, some far-off destiny, some ultimate adventure, but it doesn't have to come yet. Not yet, not now. For now he's content, for now he's happy; for now, he's moving through sunlight, on and on and on, towards a future that hasn't yet come.

**Author's Note:**

> The Three of Cups is a tarot card. It represents people coming together in order to achieve an emotional goal; it's most commonly interpreted to mean the beginning of a powerful, lasting friendship.
> 
> "Ya tebya lyublyu" means, of course, "I love you."


End file.
